Display of framed artworks ranges from illumination by natural reflected light, as in a modern gallery or museum, to conventional nearby incandescent or fluorescent lighting directed onto the surface of the artwork visible to a viewer, sometimes via slightly noticeable recessed or similarly supported external lighting means. Most such artworks are opaque to incident light, planar in arrangement, and are viewed from vantage points substantially perpendicular to an exposed surface plane--notwithstanding that some artworks are three-dimensional, or that an occasional artwork may be luminescent, as in Beck U.S. Pat. No. 5,149,568, and not require any lighting source.
Display signs presenting opaque words and/or pictures outlined by light transmitted from an adjacent light-box are well known, and in some instances such signs may be translucent so as to show color of letters or pictorial detail but are not viewed as works of art. Examples are presented in U.S. Pat. Nos., such as in illuminated signs by Gandy in 4,380,880 and Frois et al. in 4,559,731; and especially in neon signs by Bianchi in 4,976,057 and Kile in 5,270,910.
Translucent artworks illuminable by transmitted light are rarer than mere signs, and their display demands features not previously combined--or not done to best advantage. The present invention is directed to displaying such framed artworks as being itself useful.